Keep Me A Secret
by donnapie
Summary: "I wish you had chosen me." A heavy silence follows his confession. "Jackson- Sometimes I wish I had chosen you too." - One shot. AU in that April ends up married to Matthew at the end of 10x12 but canon compliant because her and Jackson? Their love knows no boundary, it knows no reason.


They did not exactly pick up where they left off.

It was not like how it was written in books or how it was portrayed in the movies wherein they just took one look at each other and then everything was forgotten.

It took a while before they can even stand being in the same room together and before they were back on speaking terms.

It took even longer than that for her to be able to forgive him for ruining her wedding and for him to get over the fact that in the end she didn't choose him.

It was totally unprecedented.

That one day they would just ease back into the silence of sitting side by side comfortably in the deserted hospital hallways or of his arms being the first place that she runs to whenever she loses a patient.

And yet here they are.

Jackson, with his comforting words, piercing stares and warm hands that hold hers and April, with her soft voice, bedimpled smile and tight hugs that never fail to soothe him.

They are back into the usual rhythm of an old relationship that feels familiar and exactly the same,

But the fact remains that it can never ever be _that_ because their circumstances have changed and now everything is different.

They'd like to make themselves believe that it is because they share a special friendship but deep inside they both know that they have gone through so much to be _just_ friends.

She risked her life for him when she ran after him in that burning bus and he risked his heart for her when he stood up in that barn to tell her he loves her despite the fact that she was marrying another man.

They've crossed so many lines and felt such intense feelings that they can never be "_just friends"_.

If Jackson realizes it he doesn't say.

If April realizes that, she thinks she's mistaken.

The light catches on April's wedding ring as she fixes her hair and it makes Jackson's heart ache in such a painful way he feels like he's been physically punched in the gut.

But just like any other day he tries to convince himself that he's over her.

He tells himself that what he feels is nothing more than a familiar stir in old feelings.

It was nothing more but melancholy, a wishful thinking over what could have been and over things that would never, ever happen.

* * *

There was never a honeymoon phase for April and Matthew because they argue over the simplest things.

He gets mad over Jackson mostly and her virginity (or lack thereof) and he never fails at every opportunity to throw that back at her face.

He cannot get past his jealousy and insecurity and his hatred for Jackson which he channels mostly unto her and it doesn't even matter that at the end of it all she still chose him and that she decided to stay with him.

It happens almost every day.

She will work long hours in the hospital and make excuses so as not to come home, and even if she just pulled a 36 hour shift, she will still find time to grab drinks at Joe's with Jackson and she will vent and rant and cry her eyes out as he listens quietly to her all the while nursing his beer.

Today is no exception.

"I don't even know why he still went through the wedding if he believes that strongly that I don't love him!"

The fact that it's because she is in love with someone else, namely him is implied but just like all other aspects of their relationship, _that_ also remains unspoken.

He gives her a half smile and tucks an errant stray of hair behind her ear as if he was carefully weighing his words before saying anything.

"But you do. You picked him. You selected him. You just have to try harder to convince him, that's all."

The lies fall more easily from his mouth now.

He's now an expert in mouthing words that he knows she needs to hear rather than saying out loud what he truly feels.

She sighs in exasperation and she leans her head on his shoulder.

"But that's the problem. Sometimes, I can't even convince myself, so how in the world am I supposed to convince him?"

Her words were barely a whisper.

The sound barely travelling above the noisy din of the darkened bar where they sit together like clandestine lovers and yet it was the expression on her face that almost did Jackson in.

That wistful, regretful look that tells him he is not alone and that a part of her will always be with him.

* * *

Cristina came from Switzerland to visit for a week and Meredith throws a party for her.

Just the old Grey Sloan gang composed of him, April, Alex, Owen, Derek, Callie, Arizona, Bailey, Webber and of course the Twisted Sisters.

There was fun and laughter and dancing and drinks (_a lot of drinks_) and so by the time the party was almost over, April was so buzzed he had to carry her out physically and drive her first to his apartment.

She sings a tune loudly in broken tones inside his car.

She looks so cute and lovely and adorably drunk that he can't help but chuckle as he turned in his seat to steal glances at her whenever they run into a red light.

"Oh!"

She exclaims as she points outside her window at the familiar scene that they're passing by.

"This is not the way to my house."

She scrunched her nose as is her habit whenever she is deep in thought and after a few moments of quiet she turns to look at him with accusing eyes.

"You're taking me home!"

She exclaimed.

And for a moment, he gloated at how she addressed the house she shares with her husband as just a house and his apartment as being home.

It was short lived however.

Because her next words left him speechless, he was literally dumbfounded.

"Are you going to have your way with me?"

Her words were slurred but her voice was seductive.

He had to remind himself that she was drunk and that she's married and that she doesn't know what she was saying and so although all he wanted to do was to grab her right then and there and to kiss her senseless, he chose to dismiss her drunken attempt at flirtation and he teased her instead to diffuse what could have been a positively volatile situation.

"Yeah, right. Because there's no foreplay sexier than seeing you throw up your dinner while I hold your hair behind your head so that it doesn't go into the toilet."

She blushed furiously and stuck her tongue out at him.

And once again he laughs.

They spent the rest of the drive in silence.

In no time at all, they were at his place and she is seated at his living room couch.

He makes her coffee and wipes her face with a washcloth and she imagines if she would be happier if this is the life she lives instead of the one she's living now.

It may be the alcohol speaking but his nearness is making her heart race and so she stares at him intently and his hand pauses in mid stroke as he catches her gaze.

"What would I do without you Jackson Avery?"

She whispers under her breath.

The smile he gives her now is a little bit dim.

He tucks her hair back in her ears.

A seemingly simple gesture which he's done a hundred times before but still it makes her feel loved and cared for because he does it so tenderly.

So lovingly.

As if she is someone that he'd always want to treasure, someone whom he'd always want to protect no matter what happens.

"There's no use in asking because you'd always have me April. _Always._"

And she almost cried at his words but he chose to break the moment by standing up then.

"Take a nap. I'd wake you after an hour. Matthew wouldn't appreciate you coming home drunk and I wouldn't want you to go through another fight with him again."

And just like that he walked away.

It took all of her willpower for her not to call him back.

It took all of her effort so that she does not hold on to him, cling on to his legs and then beg him to stay even for just one night.

Even only just for tonight.

* * *

Jackson has been burned too many times and he thinks to himself that sometimes the best way to tell someone you love them is to let them go as he drops April off at Meredith's so that she can get her car and as he watches her walk away.

His back was almost half turned away from her when he heard her shouting out his name from the distance that separates them.

"JACKSON!"

He turned back to look at her.

There was a quiet desperation in her face as she closed the gap between them but she stops when she was almost just a couple of feet away from him.

"I don't know if this is right."

She shrugged her shoulders helplessly.

"I hate feeling like this."

He fixes his expression so that the look he gives her is one of utter nonchalance.

"Feeling like what?"

"Like I'm lying to myself."

He stays put even if he wanted to gather her in his arms.

He knows how she gets when she does something that's against her beliefs and he's been hurt by her over and over again to be the one to push her into something which he knows later on she might regret.

"Everybody lies, April."

And the look she gives him was nothing less than all knowing.

Like she was reading his mind and like she can see right through him.

"Do you? Lie to me Jackson?"

The question catches him off guard and the fact that he's telling her the truth surprises him even more.

"Every freaking day."

She was expecting his answer but it still leaves her in shock but she had already opened this can of worms and she is not in any way about to stop, not when she's already begun.

"About what?"

She stares at him expectantly and she looks so vulnerable and sad and oh so fucking beautiful that the words were already out of his mouth even before he can stop himself from saying them.

"I wish you had chosen me."

A heavy silence follows his confession.

"Jackson-"

She whispers brokenly and he tries to avert her gaze and she looks like she is about to cry as she raises her hand to touch him but he cuts her off midway.

"Don't-"

He gives a self deprecating chuckle.

"Don't pity me. It's over and done with, we cannot do anything about it, we're friends and that is all we'd ever be."

She takes a sharp breath.

He raises his face to look at her and she puts up a brave front by pasting on a wobbly smile despite the fact that there were tears falling from her eyes and that there was a hole in her heart the size of which only he can ever, ever fill.

"Sometimes- Sometimes I wish I had chosen you too."

And with that, she turns around to walk back to her car and all he can do is to watch her as she drives off into the night and only when she's gone did he allow himself to bask in the agony of his broken heart.

* * *

They avoided each other after that.

The uneasy friendship that they have established after a year of tiptoeing around seemingly broken and that was when he went on a blind date set up by Callie and only because she was persistent and because Arizona keeps on nagging.

Her name is Gwen.

She is blonde and statuesque and everything that April is not and they share the same habits and interests but that's all he can share with her and never the fact that he won't ever be serious with her or any other girl because he's madly in love with his married best friend and he is coveting another man's wife.

Still, old habits die hard.

After all he is only human and made of flesh and blood and she is easy and willing and eager and he lies wordlessly with her in a strange hotel bed as she shifts under the sheets to face him right after they fuck.

"So who is she?"

He looked at her curiously.

"This girl you're hung up with."

She rolled her eyes as if it was a given and he thought to himself if he was that obvious or if his love for April has evolved to be this strong that it now comes out of his pores, it is now visibly marked on his skin.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He answered in clipped tones and she looked at him sympathetically.

"You'll get over her. Everyone does."

He kisses her to shut her up.

She doesn't know what she was saying.

She doesn't even know what the hell she's talking about.

* * *

For the first time in years, April feels free as she waits patiently in line outside the movie theatre.

Matthew is away for a short course for two months and she knows that she should be feeling sad and that she should be missing him but there was only the liberating feeling of being alone and of finally being able to breathe because lately she feels like she had been drowning.

Her evening took a turn for the worse when she runs into Jackson and Gwen.

They were holding hands and her gaze was fixated unto how their palms were linked together and she lets out a short breath and a soft "oh" as she stares at them hand in hand, her eyes wide open.

He lets go of Gwen right away as if he was caught red handed.

It feels wrong somehow.

He knows that he doesn't owe her anything and that he shouldn't even care what she thinks or feel but that doesn't stop him from feeling guilty as if he has committed a grave sin against her.

"Hi, I'm April."

She extends her hand towards his date and her smile falters and she consciously shifts her gaze from their hands to their faces but _his_ April, she is a soldier and so she marches on bravely despite the fact that she was thrown for a loop and that her heart is now slowly on the verge of breaking.

Gwen looks at him knowingly.

She grabs her offered hand with the one that he had just freed and she smiles at her in return just as warmly.

"Gwen. Pleased to meet you."

By some stroke of bad luck or perhaps through sheer irony, they all ended up seated together.

Gwen to his left, her head leaning on his shoulder and April to his right, back rigid, eyes staring straight ahead, hands clasped so tightly together that her knuckles were white and he is conscious of nothing else but only her and her ever blazing presence.

* * *

He was woken by loud, frantic raps at his front door in the middle of the night

It was pouring rain and he grabbed his alarm clock which reads 1:57 AM and he padded barefoot towards his front door only to find April soaking wet, standing there.

"D-do- Do you love her?"

His forehead furrowed in confusion.

She was shivering from the cold, her teeth chattering and she still hasn't changed out of the clothes she wore when they bumped into each other that night.

There was a fiery anger in her eyes as she confronted him.

"Wha-? April, for goodness sake! It's raining! Come in! Did something happen with Ma-"

"Do you love her? Do you love Gwen?"

Jackson makes a sound of disbelief.

Her words slowly sinking in and his anger making itself felt.

At her gall and her sheer arrogance because how dare her question him and get jealous when he has stayed quiet living with that exact, same emotion over her every single day for the past three and a half years.

He grabs her wrist and pulls her inside the door.

She tries to wrench her arms away but she was shaking far too much for it to do any good.

"Do. You. Love. Her?"

She repeated with emphasis between each word for the third time through gritted teeth.

He takes a deep breath.

The desire to inflict pain on her growing so much that he wanted to hurt her just as much as the way that she is hurting him.

"What if I do?"

He challenged her and she takes a sharp breath as if she couldn't breathe.

As if the wind were knocked off her sails and as if her lungs had just run out of air.

"Then damn you Jackson. Damn you for making me feel like this. I know it's unfair and that you don't owe me anything, but damn you. Damn you for driving me crazy and for always making me want you so badly and then rejecting me that I had no choice but to make myself believe that if I turn my back on you and walk away with my own strength this vicious cycle of need would end."

She blinks away her tears as she speaks.

Her voice was trembling and he looks at her with shock etched on his face but she was through with living this farce and so she will tell him everything that she feels in all honesty.

Just like that time when he was lying in that hospital bed.

Just like that time when they could have written this story differently and yet he chose to push her away.

"Do you still want me now? Do you still need me now?"

He asked.

He knows she does.

It was implied in everything she said and yet he still wants to hear it come straight from her mouth.

His question seemed to wake her up from her daze.

"You know I can't -"

Her answer does not deter him one bit.

"Do you love me?"

She stares at him for a while before stumbling towards his door, confused and flustered, all the while muttering under her breath.

"I—I - don't know what got over me. I shouldn't even be here. I-"

He hugs her from behind.

His chin resting on his shoulders, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist and she grows quiet.

"Do you love me?"

His voice was pleading now.

His tone dropping to a desperate whisper and April slowly felt herself weakening.

"Please Jackson. Please don't ask me that. I was stupid and rash and I shouldn't have come here so please just be a good friend and let me walk away before we both do something that we would both regret."

Her lips were saying the words but her heart was saying something else.

But she can't let her heart win.

They can never ever go back to the way it was if she ever lets it win.

"We were never just friends April. We can never ever be just friends."

_But that's all that we should ever be._

She thought of the words but she couldn't make it pass through her mouth.

She turns around to face him.

Hands planted firmly on his arms, voice full of resolve as she spoke to him.

"I'm married Jackson. "

She paused.

"I have a husband. His name is Matthew."

"But you love me."

"I shouldn't."

"But you do."

And her silence meant everything that she's always wanted to say and he steps closer to her to tell her that he loves her too and it was in that moment when his lips touches hers.

* * *

The start of their affair was more romantic than it should be.

It was supposed to be sordid and dirty and sinful but with them it felt right and perfect and everything that they were wishing for.

Perhaps it was because his touch feels even more familiar than that of the man she swore to live with for a lifetime.

Maybe it's because he feels as if she's always meant to be in his arms and that she was his even if the truth is she is somebody else's and that he is just loving her on borrowed time.

* * *

It was during one of those nights when they were lying on his bed after making love, her hair spilling out onto his pillows, their legs tangled together and their sweat cooling on their bodies when she asks him a question.

"Do you ever imagine what it would have been like if things were not the way it was? If I chose to run away with you instead of going through the wedding with Matthew?"

He smiled at her.

There used to be a time when even the mere mention of his name would emit such a painful pang in his heart but not anymore.

"All the time."

He confesses guiltily and she looks at him curiously.

"And?"

His tone was teasing when he spoke next and he wraps her even more tightly in his embrace.

"I would make love to you every chance I get. In every corner of the house and in every nook of this apartment and you don't even have to dress up because if we're married, clothes would just be useless."

She laughs as she swats him lightly on his arm.

"Silly! Not the perverted parts!"

He chuckles and he gathers her even more tightly into his arms.

"I would give you everything that you'd ever need. I'd treat you like a queen. I'd cook for you -"

"What?"

She asked excitedly.

"What would you cook for me?"

He pauses thoughtfully.

"Spaghetti with leftover chicken."

She stares far away for awhile as if imagining just that and then she nods in agreement, the smile never leaving her face.

"Sounds good."

She whispers.

"And if you need your laundry to be done, I would do it for you."

She pushes away from him to look at his face disbelievingly.

"You?"

He looks at her with a mock hurt expression on his face.

"What? I can even fold your panties if you need me to."

"Yeah, right!"

She scoffed at him and he nods vehemently as if trying his best to convince her that he can do just that and she looks at him before hiding her giggles against his chest.

"Just don't make me wash cereal bowls and keep my keys on a hook. I'm just not that type of guy."

He said as an afterthought.

"So -"

April said in a singsongy voice.

"You're not that perfect after all."

He looks at her with a mock glare before nipping at her ear seductively.

"My skills in bed more than make up for it."

And he rolls her on top of him and as he pushes himself inside of her, they both make believe that they are at this place in their imagination where they have just dreamt themselves to be.

That she is his wife and that he is her husband and that they spend their days in domesticated bliss rather than in the reality of a happiness that they cannot share and of a love that they can't shout out to the world and then they both come.

And for a few blissful moments they were right exactly where they belong.

* * *

He expected her guilt to catch up with her soon.

The way that it happened when she broke her promise to God and gave him her virginity.

But this time no matter how much of a sinner she feels she doesn't feel any shame in the fact that she's in love with him and that she's screwing him behind her husband's back.

And that scares her more than the fact that she has disappointed God.

That frightens her more than the thought that she is now due to an afterlife of eternal damnation.

* * *

The end of the two months came too fast.

"He's coming back tomorrow."

She whispers against his collarbone and he swallows the lump in his throat and he doesn't hug her like he normally does because if he did, he is afraid that he wouldn't be able to let her go.

"This is the end of this. We can't do this anymore."

The pain was evident in her voice.

She wants to break down into sobs and beat at her chest at the unfairness of the universe but they have already erred too much and she owes him this much, she needs to set him free so that he can also move on.

"I love you, April."

He knows his words won't make anything better and that saying it won't make any difference but they have already run out of reasons that now it is only the truth that they can fall back on.

"I love you too."

She whispers back to him.

In this whole deceitful web of lies which they have weaved wherein they were extremely, unexplainably happy at the expense of hurting somebody, it was the only thing that remained constant.

It was the only thing that remained certain, the only thing that they can keep as a memory when all of this is long over but never to be forgotten.

* * *

That night they made love slowly.

As if they were mastering each others body, as if they were imprinting every edge and every curve to memory.

There was a solemnity in the way they moved together.

A poetry in the way they savor each others mouth and an earnestness in every sigh they let out and in every breath they take.

He kissed her for the last time before they went to sleep.

Her lips already tasted like goodbye, his touch already felt like farewell.

* * *

She doesn't go to work for a whole week.

He wakes up in the middle of the night imagining her in another mans arms and he hears her soft moans in his head as she cries out when he slides into her.

He finds solace in drinking to numb the pain.

He drinks himself into a stupor but even that is not enough to make him forget how much he wants her and how much he needs her to be with him.

* * *

He opens the door to her outside his apartment after three weeks.

They don't say it's been a long time and she doesn't quiz him if he's okay and he doesn't ask her how she is.

Instead they just smile quietly at each other.

"You're here."

He whispers softly as she steps inside the door and as he gathers her into his embrace.

She hugs him back.

All the longing she feels evident in the way she clings on to him and there were happy tears in her eyes as she replies to him…

"I'm here. I have never left, Jackson. _I have always been here."_

* * *

_Just gonna stand there and watch me burn_  
_But that's alright because I like the way it hurts_  
_Just gonna stand there and hear me cry_  
_But that's alright because I love the way you lie_  
_I love the way you lie_

* * *

**_AUTHORS NOTE:_**

_I actually wrote this story while on the plane and I was inspired by some of the excerpts of the work I've done for Dear Jackson while re-reading it so some scenes for those who have read that piece of work might seem familiar._

_I don't normally condone adultery and i'm sorry if i will ruffle some feathers but i have only written this in the context of making some good tv drama and this is how I imagined how April and Jackson's story might have went if April chose to stay with Matthew at the end of 10x12._

_I hope you feel for it as much as I do._

_I was legit almost crying in some scenes as i was typing this on my laptop that a stewardess walked up to me and asked me if everything was alright. (I answered her in my head with Nothing to see here lady. Only a crazy, obsessed Japril shipper so move along and do your stewardessing but in reality i only told her i'm okay)._

_I would love to hear your comments._

_Leave a review and tell me what you think._

_Lastly, to all my followers who are waiting for the next installment of Different Worlds, I'm sorry it's taking some time as i have been out of the country for awhile on a business trip. I would continue it however so i hope you can just wait a little bit more patiently._


End file.
